When Babbitt asks the manicurist (with whom he is flirting) about her last name, she responds, “‘I guess it’s kind of kike. But my folks ain’t kikes’ ” (p. 260). At the Athletic Club, Sidney Finkelstein supports George’s purchase of the expensive car lighter: “‘The best is the cheapest in the long run. Of course, if a fellow wants to be a Jew about it, he can get cheap junk’ ” (p. 52). This self-loathing anti-Semitic remark is echoed by the burlesque show, in which “a Jewish comedian made vicious fun of Jews” (p. 157).

African Americans, who by constitutional amendment had been declared equal citizens more than fifty years earlier, fare even worse. In Babbitt’s world they are railway porters and are referred to as “Negroes,” “niggers,” “cotton-pickers,” and “plantation darkies.” Again, an anonymous salesman on the train expresses the views of Babbitt and his ilk most clearly: “‘I haven’t got one particle of race-prejudice. I’m the first to be glad when a nigger succeeds—so long as he stays where he belongs and doesn’t try to usurp the rightful authority and business ability of the white man’ ” (p. 131). Anyone in any way different—in speech, culture, or color—is instantly viewed as inferior.

For the businessmen of Zenith, an Irishman is a “Mick,” an Italian is a “Wop” or a “Dago,” and a German is a “Hun” or a “Hunky.” In politics, Babbitt and friends condemn anyone other than strict Republicans. People who choose an alternative lifestyle are “Bohemians,” those drawn to culture “highbrows,” and those who live in the country “hicks,” “small-town boobs” from “Yapville” and other “rube burgs.” Lewis peppers his characters’ speech and thoughts with a lexicon of prejudice. The terminology reveals the need for Babbitt and his kind to exclude those “dangerous” segments of the population who they fear will threaten their own position in society. The larger cities, where such diversity thrives, such as New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, are places, Babbitt tells his realtor audience, “‘that no decent white man . . . would want to live’ ” (p. 164).

Babbitt and the Gender War

“White” is only one of the operative words in Babbitt’s consideration of what is acceptable. Undoubtedly the largest and most dangerous segment of the population, and certainly the most threatening, is female. Although, or perhaps because, women had just won the right to vote, an event to which the novel refers directly only once, the misogyny of Babbitt and his fellows is more than evident. His taxonomy of women bears witness to his ambivalence toward them:

He divided them into Real Ladies, Working Women, Old Cranks, and Fly Chickens. He mooned over their charms but he was of opinion that all of them (save the women of his own family) were “different” and “mysterious” (p. 113).

At the same time, to Babbitt women are apparently well-understood commodities, whose defects are well known. “‘That’s the trouble with women,’ ” announces Babbitt to his family, “‘that’s why they don’t make high-class executives; they haven’t any sense of diplomacy’ ” (p. 80). “‘Trouble with women is,’” he lectures his wife, “‘they never have sense enough to form regular habits’ ” (p. 85). Later he tells her, “‘That’s the trouble with women! They’re always criticizing and commenting and bringing things up, and then they say it’s ”for your own good“!’ ” (p. 314).